Office Space
by hyacinth690
Summary: The Turks are faced with the task of replacing a lost member. But, of course, it isn't that simple...


Office Space  
Day 1, 2:55 pm  
  
"...and I curse this blue uniform, and all who wear it, to an early and well deserved grave!" Maria Jorge hurled her uniform to the floor and stood in front of her former co-workers in her underwear. A nightmare for most was literally a dream come for the now former Turk.  
  
"How d'you like them apples, Pretty Boy?" she screeched at Tseng. "I don't wear your damn uniform anymore! I don't have to listen to you! If I wanna take a three hour lunch break, I WILL! If I wanna sleep at my desk, I WILL! And if I wanna slap your ass and call you Sally, I WILL, DAMMIT! So put THAT in your pipe and smoke it!"  
  
With that, the crazed and half-naked woman stormed out of Tseng's office, leaving three surprised yet somehow unsurprised men sitting on his sofa.  
  
Reno was relieved because she scared him anyway.  
  
Rude was relieved because now she couldn't reveal who it was that covered Tseng's office in several hundred thousand blue and yellow Post-It notes (he doubted she knew about the goat).  
  
Tseng was relieved because now, at least for the moment, his ass would go unslapped.  
  
But now, the three men were faced with a serious task.  
  
"We need to replace her," said Tseng after several moments of reflection.  
  
"Huh?" said Reno. "You're gonna just let her walk off? You're not gonna, like, brainwash her or anything?"  
  
"She's half naked. How far is she going to get?"  
  
"Good point. How are Turks picked, anyway?"  
  
"We get a big bag..." said Rude.  
  
"No we don't," said Tseng, "It's a very complicated process."  
  
The phone rang. Tseng answered it.  
  
"Tseng... Yes, sir, she just, um, resigned... no, sir, I didn't think it wise... well, she is rather... yes, sir... well, perhaps she just needs some time to calm down... ... ...yes, sir." He hung up.  
  
"The president?" said Reno.  
  
"Yes. Apparently Maria tried to assault his secretary. He's had her arrested, so the city's safe for the moment." He stood up. "Back to business. Do either of you know of anyone who might be suitable to replace our insane friend?  
  
The two men shook their heads.  
  
"Alright. Rude, come with me to records. We have a long evening ahead of us."  
** ** ** ** ** ** **  
  
Day 1, 11:24 pm  
  
It was written in the Turk rulebook that no Turk was to leave ShinRa Headquarters during the choosing of a Turk, being that the task was of vital importance. All this meant was Reno was stuck in the Turks lounge, watching television, for the next however-long-it-took.  
  
So absorbed was he in his quality television program that he almost didn't hear his large silent comrade enter the room and flop down on the sofa next to him, although he did feel the flop.  
  
"I thought you two died down there," said Reno.  
  
The large silent comrade sighed.  
  
"What were you doing, anyway?"  
  
"We went through every single file on every single SOLDIER in existence and a few dead people."  
  
"I don't think a dead person's gonna help you very much."  
  
Rude said nothing. The leader of the Turks walked in and went into his office. The thunk of a head hitting a desk could be heard.  
  
"Hey, get this chick," Reno said. "She says she has too much integrity to start a catfight, and she's in a hot tub with five guys she doesn't even know... and off comes the bikini! Geez..."  
  
"I've never heard you complain about someone in a hot tub," said Rude.  
  
"Yeah, well, if she'd just admit she's a slut."  
  
The two men sat in silence for several minutes, while the slut in question explained why she didn't like the five men in the hot tub (with most emphasis being on sizes of various natures). Finally, they decided to check on their boss.  
  
"TSENG! ARE YOU ALIVE IN THERE?" called Reno, not one to leave a sofa when there was a woman in a thong on TV.  
  
"Yes, Reno, I am still alive, thank you so much for asking," came the muffled reply. "And Rude, while you weren't holding the elevator for me, I talked to a janitor who said he'd been with Shin-Ra for over 50 years. He said something about a curse..."  
  
"And since when do you listen to crusty old janitors?" said Reno.  
  
"I don't know, it may be just exhaustion. He said every time a Turk goes nuts, strange things start happening."  
  
"Such as?"  
  
"Well, my coffee did get cold awfully fast this morning, and I've gotten three calls from the restaurant I ate lunch at yesterday, and my mother called- well, you don't need to know all that, but I think you see the point."  
  
The three men thought on this for a moment.  
  
"I was stuck in the elevator for fifteen minutes when I went to dinner," said Reno  
  
"I have fourteen paper cuts," said Rude.  
  
"It's probably just coincidence," said Tseng, "but it is strange."  
** ** ** ** ** ** **  
  
Day 2, 5:47 am  
  
Tseng was sitting in a small, smoky cafe, listening to a band playing soft jazz. Across the room, a woman in a red dress was watching him carefully.  
  
He looked at himself. He was wearing a white linen suit and... a fedora? What the hell? he thought, tossing the hat on the floor. Ok, now this is a good look for me.  
  
Apparently he wasn't the only one who thought so, because the woman in the red dress was walking slowly toward him, her hips swaying gently like firm ripe peaches swaying in a calm breeze, waiting patiently to be plucked. (Author's note: I have no idea where that came from.)  
  
"Mind if I have a seat?" the woman asked, having a seat anyway. Her voice was rich and deep. She appeared to be in her early forties, had shoulder- length brown hair, large brown eyes, and full pouty red lips.  
  
"May I ask your name?" asked Tseng.  
  
"Go ahead," said the seductive woman.  
  
"Alright, what's your name?"  
  
"Lenora."  
  
Tseng couldn't help but notice that Lenora rhymed with fedora (sort of), and wondered if, since he threw the fedora to the floor, he'd have the privilege of throwing Lenora to the bed.  
  
"I haven't seen you here before, sweetie," said Lenora.  
  
"I... I don't think I've been here before."  
  
"Such a shame. We could've known each other long before tonight." Lenora leaned closer to Tseng, giving him a better view of her ample cleavage.  
  
Just as she was about to kiss him, she said "Sir, you need to wake up."  
  
"What?"  
  
"Wake up, sir..."  
  
*SLAM*  
  
Tseng was no longer in the smoky cafe with the attractive older woman. He was in his own cool gray office with Rude, who was leaning with one hand on the desk, as if he had hit it.  
  
"It's a quarter till six, sir," said Rude.  
  
"Huh? Did you slap my desk?"  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"Oh... Is that razor stubble?"  
  
Rude put one hand on his head. Sure enough, it felt like eighty-grain sand paper.  
  
"... I believe so, sir."  
  
"Well, unless you plan on refinishing an antique table, I suggest you improve your grooming. I won't have slovenly-looking Turks, it's bad enough I have Reno.  
  
"But sir, I haven't had a chance to go home and shave."  
  
"There's a store on the first floor, why can't you just buy a razor?"  
  
"I can't use disposable razors."  
  
"Why not?"  
  
"I'm tender-headed."  
  
Tseng lost his early-morning temper. "You big sissy, go groom yourself!"  
  
Rolling his eyes behind his sunglasses, Rude strode out of the room.  
  
Fifteen minutes later, said sissy was in the Turks washroom, not shaving defiantly. Reno emerged from a stall.  
  
"You're up early," the two men said in unison.  
  
"Yeah, well, I was having this weird dream," said Reno. He took Rude's silence as license to continue talking. "See, I was in this tunnel and there was this guy at the end and I was like 'Hey, man!' and he was all 'Dude, don't go that way!' and I was all like 'Man, whatever,' so I was running down the tunnel and there was this cat and it was eating a lemon and I reached down to pet it and it barked at me! So I was like 'Damn cat! See if I feed you!' and it was all 'Screw you, buddy!' And...uh...some stuff happened, and... oh yeah! Maria was in was in it."  
  
Rude, who had stopped listening at "weird dream," looked at his rambling friend. "Maria? Why?"  
  
"I dunno. She said something about there being a special on lawnmowers at Wall market and then I woke up."  
  
"Reno, that was stupid."  
  
"I never have dreams that make sense."  
  
"I believe it."  
  
Tseng stumbled into the washroom and toward a stall, yawning. He stopped upon seeing the contents of the stall and cried "Oh, my GOD that is so disgusting!"  
  
Reno looked up from the sink. "Uh, I flushed."  
  
Tseng looked at Rude. "Are you responsible for this?"  
  
"I haven't been in there yet." Rude looked in the stall. "Uh, sir, that's not shit."  
  
"What is it then?"  
  
"Shit's not usually green."  
  
"Depends on what you eat and I repeat, what is it?"  
  
The two men smelled the air.  
  
"Grass clippings?"  
** ** ** ** ** ** **  
  
Day 2, 4:21 pm  
  
Step one of selecting Turk candidates is going through SOLDIER files twice. If nothing useful turns up, then the next step is...  
  
"...Terrorists?"  
  
"Yes, Rude. Terrorists."  
  
"I'm still wondering how cut grass got in the crapper."  
  
"Why terrorists?"  
  
"They're tough, smart, and ruthless. Usually."  
  
"Why would crap be green anyway?"  
  
"Well, high concentrations of food coloring would do it, or a diet of green leafy vegetables...Reno, shut up! We have more important things to worry about."  
  
The redhead sighed. "When can we stop for dinner?"  
  
"In a few hours," Tseng replied.  
  
"I'm hungry now."  
  
"Deal with it."  
  
Out of the corner of his eye, Reno saw Rude flipping through a file. He seemed to be biting his tongue, something Reno knew he did only when he was frustrated. But his girlfriend Colonel Robbins had returned from Junon a week ago and, judging from the less-than-discreet messages she left on Rude's voice mail (which Reno "managed" for him), she wasn't unwilling to hit the sheets (or kitchen table, or leather sofa, or Pontiac Grand Prix).  
  
Upon looking directly at his friend, he realized Rude wasn't just biting his tongue.  
  
"RUDE!" Reno shouted, storming over to the larger man. He knocked over a stack of files, underneath which he found an empty five pound tub which had once contained peanut butter. "Rude, you're holding out on us!"  
  
"I was hungry," Rude replied.  
  
"So you ate an entire five pound tub of Sneaky Pete's Extra Greasy Government-Style Peanut Butter?!"  
  
Tseng looked up from a folder. "Wasn't Sneaky Pete's recalled?"  
  
"I think so," Reno said.  
  
"For what?" Rude asked, looking somewhat uncomfortable.  
  
Tseng replied "Considering you just ate five pounds of it, I don't think I ought to tell you. Don't worry; the Mako in your system makes you resistant to most poisonous chemicals and strains of bacteria."  
  
Suddenly Rude noticed what felt like a herd of small mammals fighting in his stomach. "Oh, my...!" He dashed out of the file room.  
  
"Y'know that kind of reminds me of this movie I saw once where this guy was eating stuff out of a can and it turned out to be a big can of maggots."  
  
"That was great, Reno, thanks for that."  
  
"No prob."  
  
The two men sat in silence for several moments, before Reno noticed something odd.  
  
"This don't seem right...there's a SOLDIER file mixed in with the terrorists."  
  
Tseng looked up from the same file he was staring at for ten minutes. "What?"  
  
"Number 5556842. Diefenbach, Elena Sherelle, age twenty-four, height five foot six, weight--wait, there's a smudge there." He scanned the rest of the file. "Looks like she's the best at everything-- hand-to-hand, long range, short range, evasion... perfect scores on all her exams...wonder why she's only a lieutenant."  
  
"Put that one to the side," said Tseng, "I'll look at it later."  
** ** ** ** ** ** **  
  
Day 3, 8:03 pm  
  
"Whoa! What do you call her at home?" Reno chortled from his sofa  
  
"That's none of your business." Rude mumbled. He was still in a great deal of pain and determined that he would never, nor would his children or his grandchildren, ever eat peanut butter, or any other nut product. "Are you going through my voice mail again?"  
  
"Nope."  
  
"I've had to change my password fifteen times this month because of you. How do you keep figuring it out?"  
  
"I have my ways. Now let me listen to this one again!"  
  
Rude groaned, too nauseous to protest.  
  
Meanwhile, Tseng sat in his office, going through the fifty-seven files of potential Turk candidates. The Diefenbach girl intrigued him, though he couldn't quite figure out why. It wasn't simply because she was the only SOLDIER in a stack of terrorists, drug lords, and other such pillars of society. He was also putting more than a little thought into the strange events of the past three days. Maria quitting, the grass clippings in the toilet, Rude eating a five pound tub of rancid peanut butter he had apparently found in the file room (and he thought that man had sense)... the janitor was right. Something was definitely wrong.  
  
"Reno?" Tseng called. There was no answer.  
  
"Rude? Where's Reno?"  
  
"Blow me."  
  
"EXCUSE ME??"  
  
"Not you. Tseng."  
  
"I am Tse... oh great. You're hallucinating, aren't you?"  
  
"Nah... I'm ok."  
  
"Sure. Where's Reno?"  
  
"You're standing right there, dumbass."  
  
"Hm. Rude?"  
  
"...What."  
  
"Sleep it off."  
  
While Tseng went into the washroom to find his missing Turk, a shadowy figure slipped a note on the sofa where the redheaded Turk once sat.  
End Part One. 


End file.
